Eclipse the Moon

A Novel

By: Jessie Mihalik

Narrated by: Frankie Corzo

Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins

Publisher's summary

Acclaimed author Jessie Mihalik returns with an exciting new novel about a rainbow-haired female bounty hunter tasked with preventing an interstellar war.

Kee Ildez has been many things: hacker, soldier, bounty hunter. She never expected to be a hero, but when a shadowy group of traitors starts trying to goad the galaxy’s two superpowers into instigating an interstellar war, Kee throws herself into the search to find out who is responsible—and stop them.

Digging up hidden information is her job, so hunting traitors should be a piece of cake, but the primary suspect spent years in the military, and someone powerful is still covering his tracks. Disrupting their plans will require the help of her entire team, including Varro Runkow, a Valovian weapons expert who makes her pulse race.

Quiet, grumpy, and incredibly handsome, Varro watches her with hot eyes but ignores all of her flirting, so Kee silently vows to keep her feelings strictly platonic. But that vow will be put to the test when she and Varro are forced to leave the safety of their ship and venture into enemy territory alone.

Cut off from the rest of their team, they must figure out how to work together—and fast—because a single misstep will cost thousands of lives.

©2022 Jessie Mihalik (P)2022 HarperCollins Publishers

Worth it, but...

Overall, the story is good. I gave it only 4 stars for two reasons.

First, the narrator has a few quirks, but the one that really, really bothered me was the name of of a bad guy: Morten. The narrator pronounced it, "More - 'en," and there were approximately a zillion of them scattered through the manuscript. Where is the "t," friend? It was certainly nowhere to be found here! Otherwise, the narrator did a good job, so if that wouldn't bother you, enjoy.

The story was interesting and entertaining overall. BUT. It had my last favorite trope : miscommunication. At two distinct points, I wanted to shake either the H or h to get them to make words. One sentence and their problem is solved! But it was not to happen.

I enjoyed the book as a whole, and would recommend it assuming neither of those issues are deal-breakers for you, dear reader. I love good sci fi romance, and while this isn't perfect, it definitely counts. ❤️

Deep thoughts and apology cookies

Hmmm. A bit of a step down on both the sci-fi and the romance end. I still enjoyed it, but was hoping this would improve upon book 1. This one is more of a space opera background for a romance than a series that showcases the space opera and romance equally. If you want the former, I suggest sticking with the Firefly series. Although this can stand alone, book 1 helps with better backstory for the Starlight’s crew, and for Kee and Varro’s awkward relationship.

The romance:
Based upon the first book’s friction between Kee the “sunshine and dandelion fluff” techie and Varro the “broody weapons specialist” Valovian, I was hoping for more fireworks, humor, and hate-flirting. Unfortunately, the romance side of this space opera was on the sweet and sensitive end. Varro was a big marshmallow of honor and sensitivity. Kee was too “woe is me, he hates me” instead of being the effervescent, sharpshooting hacker who kicks A and bakes a mean Snickerdoodle. Worse: this was the slowest of slow burns, with nary a kiss until 4 hrs in and nothing but a smattering of aborted smooches until 12 hrs into this 12.5 hr book. Then it’s weirdly both quick and detailed. Also, with Varro’s power being telepathy, there’s a lot of emphasis on opening their minds to each other and feelings.

The space opera:
I found the conspiracy plot to be rather simplistic and too coincidental. That, and the one-note baddies, made this seem more like camp than sci-if, with Bond villains that die upon the hill of elaborate set ups and over-monologue-ing. Leaning into space opera could still have been fun with more humor and the full cast. Sadly, 75% of the story is just Kee and Varro and new characters. One of the things I loved about book 1 was the interaction between the human and Volovian teams as they formed a single new crew. The final 25% does give great action, intrigue and brings back some of the team.

The quibbles:
📍I love so much about the narrator. But, her inability to pronounce the “t” is steadily driving me nuts, especially for the main bad guy Morton, who she calls “Mor-uhn” and made me think of him as “moron.”
Also, it feels like the series could benefit from duet narration.
📍There’s not enough details to fill in the broad brushstrokes, leaving too vague a picture in my mind.
For example, we constantly hear about Varro’s eyes going black, but what color are Kee’s eyes? And the summary says Kees has rainbow hair, but there’s hardly any mention of what that actually looks like.
I think there was mention that she’s pixie-sized and has short-cut hair that she colored… but the cover art shows a taller gal with long hair.
📍There’s a character whose pronoun is “they” which is great for inclusivity, but I am frustrated by the trend of referring to a singular person by a plural label. This isn’t so much an author thing as a confusing trend with books in general. I prefer when the pronouns and monikers are Mx or Nx. (in lieu of Mr./Ms.) or ne (for he/she) or hix (for his/her). Ah well. It appears “they” is what’s catching on. I’ll just need to focus.

Good Continuation

Sweet story, I still think the first book was better, but it was nice. I got frustrated with the characters, but that was kinda the point, so well done on the writing. Also narrator was amazing.

Had so much promise

This story had a lot of promise but the author decided to focus on sex instead of developing the story line.

Solid fun, narration is mostly good

My only complaint is that the narrator keeps dropping the “t”s in the middle of words to the point that I sometimes have trouble understanding what she’s saying (important becomes “imporruhnt”, Morton becomes moron). It’s a little confusing and awkward and very distracting.
Other than that, the narrator is great at drawing you into the story and has a fantastic delivery. It’s an odd quirk.
Pacing is great, characters are interesting, and the story is well structured and keeps your interest. The romance is sweet and sexy.

Cinnamon rolls are delicious.

Varro is a giant cinnamon roll of a bodyguard. Kee is a rainbow-haired bounty hunter. This is definitely “we’re gonna fight this attraction” romance, but thankfully Mihalik doesn’t drag it out too long.

This still doesn’t top her Consortium Rebellion trilogy, but I definitely enjoyed this one more than Hunt the Stars. 💛

Slow pace

Good story, preferred the ebook over Audio. This narrator is not my favorite. She has an odd way of pronouncing words with "nt" sounds that really grinds my gears and her other voices, particularly for male characters, doesn't dp it for me. Mostly writing this review to remind myself NOT to do an audiobook when the 3rd installment hits shelves.

My favorite book of 2022.

This is the second book in the Starlight's Shadow series and like the first book in the series, Hunt the Stars, it is an unique blend of immersive, sci-fi action/adventure and slow-burn romance. Such a good book. The narration is excellent too: Frankie Corzo is once again, amazing. The world-building is expertly crafted, it takes a gifted writer to put the reader (or in the this case, the listener) in a world unlike our own and seamlessly weave together the narrative with the world-building. One of the hallmarks of this author is her ability to write endearing, strong, capable, female characters who fall in love. Akin to her prior series, "The Consortium Rebellion" each book follows a different pairing of main characters who fall in love, in this case it is the brilliant hacker, Kee and stoic, thoughtful Varro. One of my favorite aspect of this series is the central plot-line: true enemies to lovers, all the central characters are ex-soliders, who were all part of enormous militaries that fought against each other in a devastating war. So the distrust amongst the former enemies runs deep and the slow, uneasy path to friendships amongst the joint Valovian and human crew is organic. In short, this is another wonderful addition to the series. This book has a treasured spot on my bookshelf and it is my favorite book of 2022.

Another good one

I was disappointed at first to learn this story isn't from Tavi's point of view, but that didn't last long. It's every bit as good as the first book with well developed characters marvelously different from each other and the other characters. The beginning was a bit slow compared to book one, but still interesting. I'm eager for the next book!